Originally posted by twhitehead
"A fine is a tax for doing bad, a tax is a fine for doing good."
Huh? A tax is a fine for doing good? In what way? You seem to be totally confused about what is going on here.
And a fine is not a tax. It is a fine.
And yes, they are both backed by force and I never ever suggested otherwise.
No confusion twithead. It may have gone over your head, you need to be able to think in concepts, it's a method of thought that does not really mesh well with your mental capacities (as evidenced in the money measures wealth discussion), I will explain, it's really is quite clever.
The purpose of the quote is to hi-light the hypocrisy of so called sin taxes. The guvamint is trying to modify a citizens behavior by increasing the price of something, recent favorites have been tobacco and alcohol.
It occurred to me when in NZ. There are laws restricting trade for certain businesses at Easter, i.e. ctrl freaks and bureaurats forcing religion on possibly irreligious citizens. Some businesses chose to open anyway and just pay the fine if it came to that. So you can see here how the line between a tax and a fine is becoming blurred. Obviously the businesses that chose to open do not see what they are doing as wrong, simply the voluntary trade of value for value. They wanted to sell stuff, people wanted to buy stuff.
If the ctrl freaks and busybodies are trying to dissuade people from trading at Easter, consuming alcohol and tobacco or (as per the example in this thread) sugary drinks by taxing/fining people why are they taxing/fining people for doing good things like going to work, earning a living to support a family, buying food, almost everything they do is taxed/fined.
So until the advocates of sin taxes start talking about removing taxes for when people do good things, it's just so much more hypocrisy.
That is the purpose of the quote:
"A tax is a fine for doing good, a fine is a tax for doing bad"